Blakula! - Back From Mystery City (2012)

Blakula is back, more intoxicated, broken-hearted, sad, horny, dazed and confused than ever. Each track tells a tale of doom and gloom, torment and desire, ecstasy and pain, painted with the darkest shade of noir color and the deepest red. As with the first record, Blackula's musical brew is eclectic: seventies' funk, Giallo and horror soundtracks, psychedelia, rock, contemporary classical, the avant-garde, no wave, free jazz & blues. The nocturnal funk of the title track has the groove of a subway train ridin' into the darkness. Glam guitar, violent noise and hysterical brass sections pepper Hurt Me. A Darker Shade of Noir rolls on with its possessed voodoo priestess chants, followed by the melancholic contemporary chamber music piece of Nights Are So Long. Beautiful Addiction is a frantic exercise in eerie shrieks and dark orchestral movements. Every Eild Eesire is as dirty as a standing up f**k in a back alley. The minimal voodoo slo-fi beat of The Weight Of Darkness is full of trance-like vocals, whispers, flutes and spooky keyboards. Early Dawn Bites And The Electric Spirits is a solitary Chet Baker impersonator spitting his soul through a saxophone, before passing out on a curb, lulled by the big city noises. The Giallo funk of deadlier than love is a killer groove with keyboards and maniac horns, until the final curtain Far From The City Lights. It's the end title for this imaginary movie soundtrack, a song of sin and redemption dramatically sung by Nigerian anti-Diva Francesca Blakk, with a narco-shuffle-kling and a trashcan klang, James Bond-like melody merged in a (No) New York Bowery sewer. This record is the autopsy of an obsession, and reflects all the aspects of a tortured soul.